Hello! Happy Monday. Sorry the post is a bit late. I tried to stock up for the STORM OF THE CENTURY after I dropped of Lou at school, but I had a total brain freeze, so I came home with one package of cheese sticks. No, really. We pretty much have groceries for the week, so...cheese sticks. I'll let you  know how we fare.

But I've been otherwise super productive lately! This weekend was great for wrapping up some things I've been meaning to get to. It's really a month of getting things done, and yesterday was filled with everything from hanging roller blinds (boring) to organizing receipts (boring) to finally making huge progress in the office (hooray!), which I'll share soon. Last week, I talked about our little laundry area in the "pre-bathroom" hallway, which I dubbed thusly because I am awesome at naming things.

Normally, when someone refers to a laundry area, they are assuming there are some machines in there. As I discussed last week, we haven't got any of those, though I do think that tiny sliver of space to the right of the door (which leads to the bathroom - hence the "pre-bathroom" designation) might be big enough for a mini machine. (Thanks to Jodi, btw, for commenting that Craigslist is a good place to look for such things. That is brilliant, and I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me, but I am on it!). Here's a terrible picture that shows the space a bit better.

Okay, so anyway, in this tiny area, we keep all the laundry-related stuff. It's pretty self-explanatory, but going from left to right, we've got a drying rack, two hanging laundry bags, laundry detergent, spray bottle, iron, lint rollers, sweater de-fuzzer, stain pens, mesh laundry bags, single socks bag and ironing board. The only thing that's missing is the steamer, which is in the other hall, but I'd like it to come in here. I plan to install a single but fairly deep shelf above the door to hold the steamer and whatever else.

That's already kind of a lot to cram into a tiny space, and using my tried-and-true technique of using wall and our trusty back-of-the-door space, it all works. But wait, there's more! On the other side of the hall, there's our linen closet stand-in - a Hemnes shoe cabinet from Ikea. I was pretty stoked that the wall was just wide enough for this narrow cabinet. The file box, which is an old one I recovered with this pretty marbleized paper (Paper Source). It holds our travel gear - we keep filled shampoo and soap and various travel-sized toiletries in here, ready to grab and go. 

(Yes, I switched the stuff on top of this cabinet around between pictures, when I realized my stately Roman guy (or gal?) was stuck staring at the wall). We use the cabinet to hold the normal stuff you might find in a linen closet - mostly toiletries and nail stuff. Our daily-use towels are on shelves we installed in the bathroom, but I also keep a couple of what I affectionately call "Buster towels" in this cabinet. Buster is my late, sweet, sweet kitty, and any pet owner knows a designated cat/dog towel comes in mighty handy. Though Buster's no longer with us, random messes that require a towel I don't care to use on my body are still around, so there the towels are.

This picture is awesome, I know. But I wanted to show a final way we eek out space, with a trick I use often: baskets under a shelf or chest of drawers. These narrow, shallow baskets, from Target a million years ago, fit perfectly under the cabinet and hold more toiletries, like razor blades and sugar waxing gear.